Anorexia mirabilis
Anorexia mirabilis (Greek/Lat.: roughly "miraculous loss of appetite") or inedia prodigiosa is the term for fasting for spiritual reasons. The term was used by medieval physicians who considered it miraculous when women survived long fasts.
While anorexia nervosa usually focuses on a change in the body, fasting is aimed at a spiritual approach to God. Most often, saints reported to have anorexia mirabilis are mystics who led lives of asceticism marked by poverty, mortifications, celibacy, and nocturnal prayer.
St. Beatrice of Nazareth, Mary of Oignies (1167-1213), Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), Columba of Rieti (1467-1501), and Rosa of Lima (1586-1617) are said to have subsisted only on hosts and a little food such as pomegranate seeds or herbs. As a result of the Reformation, there was a new assessment of prolonged fasting: it was now considered a work of the devil rather than a godly practice. Women involved were no longer considered God-fearing or holy, but possessed by evil.
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Causes
Anorexia represents a general symptom and can therefore occur in a number of other disease entities. As a symptom it is common in almost all severe infectious diseases, but also in tumor diseases, in permanent abuse of psychoactive substances or as an independent mental disorder (anorexia nervosa, anorexia). Other causes may be due to gastrointestinal obstruction (obstruction of the gastrointestinal tract), e.g., in superior mesenteric artery syndrome.
Consequences and complications
Malnutrition as a result of anorexia can become life-threatening and cause severe physical damage. It leads to lack of nutrients with breakdown of body tissues (catabolism), emaciation (inanition) to marasmus (lack of energy and protein) or cachexia (abnormally severe emaciation).
Rapidly occurring consequences of anorexia are particularly visible in organs with high metabolic activity and building blocks with a short half-life, such as a deficiency of albumin in the blood with the formation of edema (→ starvation edema).
Treatment
Treatment of anorexia depends on the cause and may include artificial feeding if necessary.
